Method of and machine for molding soles



April 1, 1941. E.\- QUINN 2,236,607

METHOD OF AND MACHINE FOR MOLDING SOLES Filed Dec. 12, 1938 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Fig.1 Fig.5

April 1, 1941. E. QUINN 7 2,236,607

METHOD OF AND MACHINE FOR MOLDING SOLES Filed Dec. 12, 1938 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 JJFi 5 5 Patented Apr. 1, 1941 -UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE METHOD OF AND MACHINE FOR'MOLDING SOLES Application December 12, 1938, Serial No. 245,107

21 Claims.

This invention relates to turn soles and to methods and apparatus employed in turn sole molding.

In preparing turn soles for attachment to uppers, the sole is first channeled to form thereon the usual turn shoulder which establishes the feather line of the finished shoe; a marginal feather, and a stitching channel which is located inwardly of the shoulder. After having been channeled, the margin of the sole is molded in the direction of its tread surface to expose the base of the shoulder and thereby facilitate the inseaming of the upper to the sole. In accordance with the present practice, the sole is first mulled after which it is placed in a molding machine where the margin is compressed between the complementary curved faces of a pair of molding rolls. As a, result of the molding pressure, the extreme edge portion of the sole is compressed to a thickness less than the original channeled thickness and the turn shoulder is broken down to a varying height which is less than that which was formed by the channeling operation thus rendering it less able to define a sharp feather line.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a shouldered sole member havirn. a compacted shoulder wall with a well defined line which is not merely of full channeled height but of an increased height thus facilitating the inseaming operation. Another object of this invention is to provide a molded turn sole having an edge-face which is compacted and is upset to a thickness greater than its normal channeled thickness so that a closer relation of the edge to tion from the shoulder of the sole member being It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved machine for the practice of the above method. To this end, and as illustrated herein, the machine is arranged to support the sole to be operated upon inwardly of its edge and is provided with means for bending the unsupported marginal portion of the sol-e at an angle to the supported portion and for applying pressure to the bent portion to thicken its edge face and to mold the bent portion so as to expose the base of the shoulder wall. In accordance with another feature of this invention, the foregoing operation is gaged from the shoulder of the sole being operated upon and to this end gaging means are disposed in cooperative relation with the shoulder to control the operation from that point.

A still further feature of this invention relates to the means for upsetting and increasing the shoulder height of a shoulder channeled sole member. As illustrated, this means comprises an inclined surface on the face of the gaging means which is arranged to upset the shoulder as it moves past the gaging means.

With the above and other objects in view, the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings and'will be poin ed out in the appended claims.

In the drawimgs,

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a turn sole as it appears immediately after the channeling operation, a portion of the sole being broken away to disclose the shoulder and the channel cuts in cross section;

Fig. 2 is a cross sectional View on a larger scale taken on the line IIII of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a View similar to Fig. 1 showing a turn sole immediately after completion of the molding operation carried out in accordance with the teachings of my invention;

Fig. 4 is a cross sectional View on a larger scale taken on the line IVIV of Fig. 3 and showing the thickened feather edge face and the heightened shoulder;

The soles shown in Figs. 1 to 4 are not drawn to scale, the showings being merely illustrative of myinvention.

Fig. 5 is a side elevation of a turn sole molding machine illustrating the features of improvement which produce a turn sole as shown in Figs. 3 and 4, portions of the machine being broken away to disclose essential details of the construction; 7

Fig. 6 is a front view of the operating head of the machine;

Fig. 7 is a perspective view of the abutment against which the edge face of the feather is forced during the molding operation, and

Fig. 8 illustrates in perspective the plow-like tool against which the shoulder of the sol-e is engaged during the molding operation both to gage the width of the margin to be molded and to upset the shoulder. 1

Referring to Figs. 1 and 2, If] indicates a turn sole which has been channeled to form therein an inner channel l2, a shoulder M, a marginal feather having an inclined upper surface It, and an edge face [8. Figs. 3 and 4 show views of a sole similar to that illustrated in Fig. 1 after it has been molded in accordance with the teachings of this invention. It is to be noted that the height of the shoulder M has been increased, the edge face I3 has been appreciably thickened and that the angle between the shoulder and the feather has been opened up to facilitate inseaming operations.

In accordance with one manner in which the method of the present invention may be practiced to produce a sole similar to that shown in Figs. 3 and 4, a sole which has been channeled in the usual manner, as indicated in Figs. 1 and 2, is supported inwardly of its edge and the overhanging feather portion is bent sharply below the support and, in the course of the feather bending operation, pressure is applied to the feather edge face to compact the fibers of the feather portion and to thicken the edge face l8. It has been found that this compacting action produces a set in the feather portion which holds it in the bent position shown in Fig. 4 with the base of the shoulder exposed. The marginal port-ion of the sole is progressively operated upon and, in accordance with another feature of the method of this invention, the operation is controlled or gaged from the shoulder M of the sole being operated upon rather than from the edge face of the feather portion which is customary in the usual sole molding operation. By controlling the operations from the shoulder of the sole, the feather portion is left free to be operated upon in the manner described above.

Bending of the feather below the supported portion of the sole tends to pull the sole transversely of the line of feed and hence to draw the shoulder against the gaging means. pressure of the shoulder against the gaging means compacts and heightens the shoulder and, in order to take full advantage of this pressure, a gaging means which is provided with a shoulder upsetting surface is used so that the maximum shoulder heightening effect will be obtained,

As a result of th practice of this method, the feather portion of the sole is molded or bent back toward the grain surface thus exposing the base of the shoulder, thereby facilitating the inseam-ing operations by which the sole is attached to the upper; the edge face of the feather portion is thickened so that it will lie close to the upper when the feather portion is bent back in the subsequent sole leveling operation; a square shoulder is formed which is appreciably thicker than the one formed in the original channeling operation and which has a well defined line that will assist the operator in assembling the upper on the sole and, in the process of forming this shoulder, the fibers are compacted thereby reinforcing the shoulder and rendering it moreable sharply to define and to maintain the desired feather line in the finished shoe. There is another advantage resulting from the practice of This this method which it will be well to note here, namely, that by its practice soles can be molded when dry and thus can be attached to the uppers immediately after molding. In accordance with the present practice, soles are molded while in a highly moist or wet condition and either have to be set aside a considerable length of time to dry or else there is an appreciable danger of the moisture in the soles discol-oring the upper-s when they are attached thereto. This discoloring is a particularly vexati-ous source of trouble when operating upon light colored uppers such as are used in womens shoes as the discoloration is difficult to remove. Another advantage which has been found to result from molding soles while dry is that no permanent stretch is imparted to the bent marginal portion of the sole and hence the marginal portion will b returned without undue difiiculty to the desired position by the subsequent sole leveling operation. In contrast to this, when sole margins are molded while wet they frequently stretch and considerable difficulty is encountered in the subsequent sole leveling operation as these stretched margins present a waving, undulating effect which is very difficult to eliminate. While the step of controlling an operation on a shouldered sole from the shoulder thereof and also that of upsetting and heightening the shoulder have been described in conjunction with an operation on a turn sole, they are not limited to soles of that type as obviously they could be used to advantage elsewhere, as for example in operations on shouldered insoles.

An embodiment of applicants novel mechanism for carrying out the above described method is illustrated by way of example in a. machine of the type disclosed in the United States Patent No. 1,059,394, granted April 22, 1913, upon an application filed in the name of J. E. Reid. This machine comprises a head 20 having pivotally mounted thereon a carrier 22 on which is rotatably mounted a cone-shaped work supporting roll 24 (Fig. 5). The under surface of this roll is recessed or mushroomed for a purpose which A will be described subsequently. Located above the work supporting roll 24 is a rotatable feed wheel 26 which is mounted on a, drive shaft 28 and is positioned to engage the work inwardly from the turn shoulder during the molding operation so as to avoid breaking downthe shoulder.

In operation, the unsupported feather portion is bent downwardly over the edge of the supporting roll 24 by a feather wheel 30 which is mounted on the drive shaft 28 and is located a short distance inwardly from the feed wheel 26 toward the machine head 20, the feather wheel 30 engaging the unsupported feather portion as it approaches the supporting roll 24 and gradually bending the feather portion downwardly until it is bent substantially at right angles to the portion of the sole on the roll 24 at the point where the sole is engaged by the feed roll 26 (Fig. 5). Bending the feather portion of the sole over the edge of the supporting r011 24 pulls the rest of the sole after it and hence forces the shoulder I4 against a gage 32 with considerable pressure. This pressure will compact and heighten the shoulder l4 and in order 'to obtain the maximum heightening effect, the face of the gage 32 which is contact with the shoulder I4 is provided with an upwardly inclined flange or rib 34 (Figs. 6 and 8) which is forced inwardly into the surface of the shoulder l4 by the pull from the bent flange portion and plows or upsets that surface as the sole is moved past the gage 32 by the feed wheel 26. The gage 32 is adjustably connected to an arm 31 (Figs. and 6) that extends outwardly from the head by a carrier 36 (Fig. 5) which is slidably mounted in the arm 31, being positioned therein by a set screw 35, and is clamped to the gage 32 by a headed screw 38 that extends through a slot 40 in the gage 32 and is threaded into the carrier 36.

The edge face I8 of the portion of the feather which is bent below the surface of the supporting roll 24 by the feather wheel 30 is forced against an abutment 42 positioned below the face of the supporting roll 24 a distance somewhat less than the width of the feather on the sole being operated upon. To relieve the pressure exerted on the bent feather portion by the feather wheel 30 and the abutment 42, the grain surface of the feather edge portion will expand inwardly into the recess on the under side of the supporting roll as it moves past the roll thus thickening the feather edge face. To avoid the possibility of the underlying portion of the thickened feather edge binding between the edge of the roll 24 and the abutment 42 as it passes out from under the roll 24, the rear portion of the edge of the abutment 42 adjacent to the supporting roll is recessed, leaving an extension 52 (Fig. '7) in the forward portion which terminates just short of a vertical line running through the axes of the supporting roll 24 and the feed roll 26 (Fig. 6). The abutment 42 is connected to the machine head 20 by a carrier 44 (Fig. 5), one end of which is slidably mounted in the machine head and is positioned therein by a set screw 45 and the other end of which is clamped to a projecting arm 48 on the abutment 42 by a clamping screw 50 (Figs. 5 and 7). It has been found that suflicient pressure is applied to the feather as it passes over the leading edge of the abutment 42 to compact the fibers in the bent feather portion sufficiently so that the feather will remain in a downwardly bent position with the base of the shoulder exposed for an ensuing inseaming operation and also that the edge face of the feather will be appreciably thickened by its expansion into the mushroom-like opening under the supporting roll 24. The reaction from the pressure of the feather portion against the abutment 42 will tend to push the shoulder l4 upwardly into the space between the feed roll 26 and the gage 32 (Fig. 5) and thus will increase the pressure which forces the shoulder !4 against the inclined flange 34 on the gage 32.

The shafts 22 and 28 of the illustrated machine are driven by an actuating mechanism similar to that disclosed in the above-mentioned patent to Reid No. 1,059,394.

To mold turn soles in the illustrated machine, the gage 32 is adjusted so as to position a sole on the supporting roll 24 with its feather portion overhanging the edge of the roll, the gage being located so that the lower end of its inclined flange 34 contacts the base of the sole shoulder, and the abutment 42 is adjusted to a position below the edge of the supporting roll which is slightly less than the Width of the feather portion of the sole being channeled. A sole is then placed in the machine and as it is moved over the supporting r011 24 by the feed wheel 26 the feather roll 32 will progressively bend the unsupported feather portion downwardly below the surface of the supported portion on the roll 24 and .will force it against the abutment 42 and under the supporting roll 24 thus' molding the feather portion and thickening its edge face and, at the same time, the shoulder will be forced against the inclined flange 34 on the gage 32 by the pull from the .bent feather portion and will be upset and thickened as it is moved past the gage.

A portion of the final feather edge thickening effect may be obtained in the channeling operation when carried out in the manner taught in my copending application Serial No. 218,997, filed July 13, 1938, which has matured into Patent No. 2,210,040 granted Aug. 6, 1940, entitled Method of and machine for operating upon soles.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. The method of molding the margin of turn soles to prepare them for attachment to shoes which comprises bending the marginal portion of a sole at a sharp angle to the body portion thereof and applying sufficient molding pressure to the edge of the bent marginal portion to thicken it appreciably.

2. The method defined in claim 1 in which the sole is operated upon while in a substantially dry condition.

3. The method of molding a sole to prepare it for attachment to a shoe upper which comprises progressively bending the marginal portion back toward the grain side and forcing the edge of the portion in which the bend is being made against an abutment With sufficient pressure to thicken appreciably the bent marginal edge.

4. The method of preparing a sole member having a shoulder and a feather formed thereon for attachment to an upper which comprises the step of applying suflicient molding pressure to the shoulder wall and to the feather portion to thicken appreciably the edge of the feather and to upset the shoulder wall to increase its height.

' 5. The method of molding turn soles having a feather and a shoulder formed thereon which comprises progressively bending the feather at an angle to the body portion of the sole and applying suificient molding pressure to the edge of the bent portion of the feather and to the shoulder to thicken appreciably the edge of the sole and to increase the height of the shoulder wall.

6. The method of molding shouldered sole members which comprises progressively bending the edge portion of the sole member and concomitantly gaging the bending operation from the shoulder and upsetting the shoulder to increase its height appreciably.

7. A machine for operating upon a sole member having a shoulder and a feather formed thereon to prepare it for attachment to an upper comprising mechanism for applying sumcient pressure to the edge of the sole member to appreciably thicken the same, and means arranged to cooperate with the shoulder on the sole member to control the edge thickening operation from that point.

8. A molding machine for operating upon turn soles having a shoulder and a feather formed thereon to prepare them for attachment to uppers comprising work feeding means, a work support, an abutment offset from the work support, means for pressing the edge of the feather portion of a sole on the work support against the abutment to thicken it appreciably, and a gage arranged in cooperative relation with the shoulder on the sole for gaging the molding and edge thickening operation from that point, said gage having an inclined face for upsetting and increasing the height of the shoulder wall as it is moved past the gage by the feeding means.

9. A molding machine for operating upon turn soles to prepare them for attachment to shoe uppers comprising a work support, work feeding means, and means for bending the marginal portion of a work piece as it is moved over the work support by the feeding means and for applying.

sufiicient pressure to the edge of the bent marginal portion to thicken the edge appreciably.

10. A molding machine comprising a work support, an abutment offset from said support, and means for bending the marginal portion of a sole on the support about the edge of the support and forcing the edge of the bent marginal portion against the abutment with suflicient force to thicken it appreciably.

11. A molding machine comprising a work support, an abutment offset from the work support, means arranged to bend a section of the marginal portion of a sole n the work support at an angle to the body portion thereof and to force the edge of the bent portion against the abutment with suflicient pressure to thicken it appreciably, and means for feeding the sole past the bending means thereby progressively to mold the margin of the sole and thicken its edge.

12. A molding machine comprising a work support, an abutment offset from said work support, a rotatable molding member arranged to bend the marginal portion of a sole sharply about the edge of the work support and to force the edge of the bent marginal portion of the sole against the abutment with s'ufiicient pressure to thicken the edge appreciably.

13. A molding machine comprising a work support, an abutment located beneath the edge of the work support, a rotatable molding member arranged to bend the marginal portion of a sole below the edge of the work support and to force the edge of the bent marginal portion of the sole against the abutment with sufficient pressure to thicken the edge appreciably, .a portion of said abutment being relieved to allow the thickened edge to pass from beneath the work support without binding between the abutment and the support.

14. A molding machine for operating upon turn soles having a shoulder formed thereon comprising a work support, means for progressivelydeforming the marginal portion of a sole on the support, and means for applying sufiicient pressure to the turn shoulder to upset it and increase its height appreciably.

15. A molding machine for operating upon turn soles having a shoulder formed thereon comprising a work support, a shoulder engaging member associated with the work support, and means for molding the marginal portion of a sole on the support, said means being arranged to force the shoulder of the sole against the shoulder engaging member with suflicient pressure to upset the shoulder and increase its height appreciably.

16. In a turn sole molding machine, a rotatable work support, an adjustable gage arranged for engagement with the shoulder of a sole on the work support, said gage being adjusted to position the sole with its feather portion overhanging the edge of the support, and means for bending the overhanging feather portion below the edge of the support, said bending action urging the shoulder outwardly against the gage thereby upsetting the shoulder to increased height, and feed means for moving the work past the gage and the feather bending means.

17. A machine as defined in claim 16 wherein the edge gage comprises a plow having an inclined shoulder engaging rib for upsetting and increasing the height of the shoulder as the sole is moved past the plow.

18. A sole fitting machine for operating upon shouldered sole members comprising a work support, a plow arranged for engagement with the shoulder of a sole member on the work support, and work feeding means for forcing the shoulder against the plow and for moving the work past the plow thereby progressively to upset and thicken the shoulder wall and increase its height.

19. A sole fitting machine for operating upon shouldered sole members comprising a work support, a gage arranged to position a sole on the work support, said gage having an inclined work upsetting surface the lower end of which is arranged to engage the sole shoulder near its base, and means for forcing the shoulder against the upsetting surface and for moving the sole past the gage thereby progressively to upset the shoulder wall and increase its height.

20. A gage adapted for use in a sole fitting machine comprising a work engaging face and an inclined work upsetting rib on the Work engaging face arranged progressively to upset and thicken the face of the work as it moves past the gage.

21. A molding machine for turn soles having a shoulder and a feather formed thereon comprising a work support for supporting a sole inwardly from its edge, an abutment offset from the Work support, a wheel arranged to bend the overhanging feather portion of a sole on the work support over the edge of the support and to force the edge of the bent feather portion against the abutment with sufficient pressure to thicken appreciably the edge of the feather portion, a shoulder thickening member arranged for pressing engagement with the shoulder as it is urged transversely of the support by the bending of the feather over the edge of the support, and feeding means arranged to contact the sole inwardly of the shoulder thereby to avoid breaking down the shoulder.

EDWARD QUINN. 

